Who I Think You Really Ought To Be Reading by MWStover

**Erfael** · January 17th, 2005, 06:35 PM

Okay, Matt, have at us...you promised us a list. Go for it.

**MWStover** · January 18th, 2005, 11:11 AM

Originally Posted by Erfael

Okay, Matt, have at us...you promised us a list. Go for it.

Quick-like, off the top of my head . . .

Josef Conrad
Lord Jim
Heart of Darkness
Nostromo

Ernest Hemingway
The Sun Also Rises
For Whom the Bell Tolls
A Farewell To Arms
The Snows of Kilimanjaro (Collected Stories)

Rudyard Kipling
The Light That Failed
Captains Courageous
Collected Stories

Mark Twain
Huckleberry Finn
Life on the Mississippi
The Mysterious Stranger
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Lev Tolstoy
War and Peace
"The Death of Ivan Ilych"

Homer
The Iliad
The Odyssey

Euripedes
The Trojan Women
The Bacchae

Aeschylus
The Orestaia

Jean-Paul Sartre
The Flies
"The Wall"

William Shakespeare
Collected Works, but especially
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
The Tragedy of King Lear
King Henry IV (Parts 1 and 2)
The History of Troilus and Cressida
The Tragedy of Macbeth

Christopher Marlowe
Doctor Faustus

I guess that'll do for a start. Many of the above are actually in-genre, too.

**Leiali** · January 19th, 2005, 05:55 AM

No female writers whatsoever. I read alot (obviously) and a lot of classics too, and I try and get a gender balance. Having tried and failed to get interested in Hemmingway and Conrad, it is likely that I will not read quite a lot on this list. And surely Marlowe should be enjoyed on stage?
But back to my original point. No female writers. Any chance of adding some to your list?

**juzzza** · January 19th, 2005, 06:02 AM

And I bet none are black or gay either!!! BURN HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Leiali, if asked to make any list of favourites, should you be honest and state your faves or try and go for gender balance? Gender balance for the sake of a PC list seems pointless.

Sorry if I read too much into your post, the Internet is priceless for 'wrong-end of stick' grabbing.

**Glelas** · January 19th, 2005, 06:29 AM

Originally Posted by Leiali

No female writers whatsoever. I read alot (obviously) and a lot of classics too, and I try and get a gender balance.

It is a thread for HIS preferences not yours.
If I am not mistaken none of those authors on the list were black-irish jews either, I don't see the black-irish jewish people complaining.

**Rocket Sheep** · January 19th, 2005, 07:00 AM

I was exhausted just reading the list. It looks like a reading list for a degree in literature (look, I said the dirty 'L' word in an sf forum).

My library has a habit of throwing out old books. I had to go and wrestle one of Andre Norton's early books out of the back room and I wouldn't give it back until they promised to tape it up and put it back on the shelves... I tried to tell them it was a classic. Perhaps I'm not quite in tune with the meaning of 'classic'.

**Leiali** · January 19th, 2005, 07:16 AM

Originally Posted by juzzza

And I bet none are black or gay either!!! BURN HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Leiali, if asked to make any list of favourites, should you be honest and state your faves or try and go for gender balance? Gender balance for the sake of a PC list seems pointless.

Sorry if I read too much into your post, the Internet is priceless for 'wrong-end of stick' grabbing.

I take your points Glelas and Juzzza and I must confess I am instinctively PC. My issues were since women are half the population, a representative voice would be nice. And when I meant gender balance, I meant 'don't you have any female writers you like off the top of your head?' Not please satisfy my sense of PC ness. Although I appreciate that this is his list, and he can write what he likes, surely interactive feedback would keep this thread on its toes? I figured one obvious problem for me. And said it.

PS - Marlowe was gay

PPS - Remember that sort of row we had about machismo Juzzza? I think this thread ties in with that for me, I personally found Hemmingway and Conrad difficult to get into because I found the writing dry and too masculine for me to have any real commitment to the reading. I won't even get started on Henry Miller. Again, part of the reason why I brought it up was to explore that....I forgot to add to that the fact that I really like Caine, which could be considered contradictory to the point I was trying to make.

**Gary Wassner** · January 19th, 2005, 08:07 AM

Leiali - This is Matt Stover's forum. What did you expect? Christopher Isherwood, Sylvia Plath and Evelyn Waugh? I think you have the wrong author for that. Here you get no-nonsense, hard talking, machismo. He's 'the bear', remember? Though I really do believe there is another side to MWS that maybe he will confess to one day. I don't think you can be a superb author and not be intuitive and sensitive, though that persona may not suit his image.

**Leiali** · January 19th, 2005, 08:58 AM

I know! and to top it all off, all the Shakespeare Stover has picked is tragedy! I would have gone for the Tempest or A Midsummer Nights Dream, probably because of the element of the fantastic.... But at least Romeo and Juliet isn't in there!

**MWStover** · January 19th, 2005, 10:05 AM

Leiali --

If it makes you feel any better, Evangeline Walton changed my life. She's one of the writers that BLADE OF TYSHALLE is dedicated to. That list was just off the top of my head, and I was specifally avoiding the in-genre stuff, which is to follow.

For Shakespeare's comedies, I prefer MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING and AS YOU LIKE IT -- though TROILUS AND CRESSIDA technically qualifies as a comedy.

Marlowe was indeed gay. As was, most likely, Shakespeare (or bisexual, anyway). Irrelevant to their writing. Speaking as a former actor, I truly believe that Marlowe reads better than he plays, but that's just my opinion.

And I am indeed masculine. I am also sensitive and intuitive, and I occasionally find tears in my eyes at the movies.

Yes, I am the complete 21st Century man . . .

And I'm modest, too.

A quick list in-genre:

Evangeline Walton
The Mabinogion
But specifically
A Prince of Annwn and The Children of Llyr

Robert A Heinlein
Everything up to and including Stranger in a Strange Land
After that . . . eh . . .

Roger Zelazny
This Immortal
Isle of the Dead
Lord Of Light
Creatures of Light and Darkness
The Last Defender of Camelot

Fritz Leiber
Collected Stories (all of them -- he was one of the the Titans)
The Fafhrd & Gray Mouser adventures (again, all of them, for the reason above)
Conjure Wife
The Big Time
Our Lady of Darkness

Ursula K. LeGuin
The Left Hand of Darkness
The Earthsea Trilogy
Any short story collection . . .

Scott Lynch
The Lies of Locke Lamorra

John Varley
Titan
Wizard
Demon
Steel Beach

Gene Wolfe
The Book of the New Sun
The Island of Dr. Death and Other Stories and Other Stories
Soldier of the Mist

Greg Bear
"Heads"
The Forge of God
Anvil of Stars

Larry Niven
Ringworld
Tales of Known Space

Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
Inferno
The Mote in God's Eye
The Gripping Hand
Oath of Fealty
Footfall

J. Gregory (Greg) Keyes
The Age of Unreason
The Briar King

Daniel Keys Moran
Emerald Eyes
The Long Run
"The Star"

Stephen R. Donaldson
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever (First & Second)
The Gap Series

Ray Bradbury
Any short story collection, but particularly
Dandelion Wine
The Illustrated Man
A Medicine for Melancholy

Isaac Asimov
The Caves of Steel
The Foundation Trilogy
(with Robert Silverberg) The Ugly Little Boy

That should do for a start. Once everybody's worked their way through that list, I'll have more . . .

**Miriamele** · January 19th, 2005, 11:07 AM

I love this thread. It's entertaining, and informative too!

Like Leiali I don't like Hemingway or Conrad either. But I don't know that it's because their writing is too masculine. I always figured it was because it was too dull and depressing and pretentious. (Just my opinion.)

BTW, thanks Matt for the lists. I'll be checking some of those out (theoretically, at least, when I make some extra money or find time to get to the library

).

**Holbrook** · January 19th, 2005, 12:24 PM

Maybe Mr Stover can answer a question for me that I haven't been able to find out. He mentions Evangeline Walton retelling of the stories of The Mabinogion.(The four branches or Mabinogi) Does he know if Evangeline Walton used Lady Charlotte Guest's translation as her base or did she base her work on other studies done on the Red Book of Hergest

**Jacquin** · January 19th, 2005, 12:49 PM

Originally Posted by MWStover

A quick list in-genre:

Evangeline Walton
The Mabinogion

*snip*

(with Robert Silverberg) The Ugly Little Boy

That should do for a start. Once everybody's worked their way through that list, I'll have more . . .

What, no Matt Stover? Oh, ok then, but only because you said so...

J

**Rob B** · January 19th, 2005, 02:05 PM

I don't feel too under-read...I've read about 10 from the first list and about 21 from the second list. Though to be fair, one of the books from the genre list isn't published yet.